Monday, October 4, 2010

Time for this week's vote...

We should have our Connecticut Senate numbers out later today and we'll start rolling out Colorado and New York poll results tomorrow.

Here are the options for next weekend:

-California. We found a very encouraging picture for Democrats in the state three weeks ago, it would be interesting to see if that's holding true.-Florida. The Governor's race in particular has seen some pretty divergent polling of late. 2 weeks ago this seemed likely to be one of the Democrats' brighter sports for this year, that may or may not still be the case.-Missouri. Some internal Democratic polls have shown the race tightening but with limited independent polling on the race it's not real clear whether that's really happening or not.-Nevada. It's been 10 weeks now since we polled this race, pretty long given how high up the list of competitiveness it is.-New Hampshire. Some polling shows the Governor's race a toss up, some still a strong edge for John Lynch. And have Democratic prospects in the Senate race really faded away or not?-Washington.The other top tier Senate contest we've gone a long time without polling- or is it really still top tier? Interested to see if we would have Patty Murray pulling away or not.-West Virginia. Despite the increasing competitiveness of this race we're still not seeing numbers from anyone but Rasmussen so we're open to taking another look even if it hasn't been that long.-Wisconsin. When we polled this a few weeks ago it was right after the Republican primary so I'm curious to see how much of Ron Johnson and Scott Walker's strong standing was a post-primary bounce and how much of it was real.

Voting is open until Wednesday night and we'll do at least the top two vote getters. And please leave suggestions for questions you'd like us to ask in these states beyond the obvious stuff.

CA if merely to see what Meg "i don't like iligals unless i have one" Whitman looks like because ras has Brown up 5 but there known for the problems so it could be intresting to see if Browns hit 50 yet because i think he has also still intresting to see if Boxer is still out of reach for Fiorina

New Hampshire, but please do the House races too since there are only two of them. The UNH Survey Center poll that came out recently was massively flawed - it would be a historical aberration if, as that poll claimed, union households were massively more Republican than non-union households, or if men turned out at a 55-45 advantage in NH-02. They also set their poll up with a 6% Republican registration advantage - BEFORE applying a likely voter screen. Democrats currently have the registration edge in New Hampshire; applying a screen to create such an edge might be defensible if that's their impression of the likely voters, but they weighted their sample before screening.

I would at some point be interested in the Texas Governor's race being polled again. It's amazing considering how big a state that Texas is that it is so little polled (especially when compared to Florida). I'd like to see if White still has a shot at it. Of the big three Governor's races, CA, TX, & FL--it looks like Jerry Brown is moving ahead in CA according to several polls--Scott has been gaining in FL, but it's still close--so let's see how Texas is going?

If you poll Florida or California I would really like to see a poll of the races for Attorney general those two races are really important. If you poll Florida AFTER you ask the Sink vs. Scott question and do the fav/unfav you should ask whether Rick Scott's actions as CEO of Columbia HCA healthcare company are making any impact in their vote.

Nevada, please! We've seen a number of botched polls (with whacked out methodology and internals!), scandals du jour, wild media narratives, and a campaign that at times seems to be spinning out of control. IMHO a new Nevada poll is definitely past due!

And btw, if Nevada does make the final cut, is it possible for PPP to poll the House races, especially NV-03? While the House race doesn't get as much coverage as our Senate race, there's also plenty happening here and it will be interesting to see whose side has been spending more effectively. (The NRCC recently dumped a big ad buy for Joe Heck (R), but the unions and EMILY's List have been dominating the airwaves, and especially cable, for Dina Titus (D) for the last 2 months.)

Looks like an anonymous commenter was right (and backed by facts, which is unusual among the anonymous commenters here). In 2008 Democrats took a very narrow lead in voter registration in this once-heavily-Republican state, but Republicans have in fact retaken that lead by about 3000 voters. However, that constitutes a 0.4% Republican advantage, not the 6% Republican edge the UNH Survey Center claimed in their pre-weighted numbers.

The point still stands. The Granite State Poll has a heavily unrealistic population.